The present invention relates to a business form set comprised of multiple business form plies for recording information, two of which plies form a closable envelope for securing a sample, and particularly relates to continuous business form sets useful for recording medical information concerning a patient, a sample from the patient, and laboratory tests for the sample and including an envelope for containing the sample whereby accurate records pertaining to the sample and patient may be consolidated.
There are many instances where information pertaining to an attached sample must be accurately maintained, notwithstanding that the sample is transported between different work locations and handled by different people, all of whom wish to maintain accurate records pertaining to the sample. For example, in a medical setting, it is customary for a laboratory to generate by computer a charge requisition listing various tests which the laboratory can perform. When a physician orders one or more particular tests, the laboratory typically forwards the charge requisition to the physician, together with a container having separate compartments in which samples from the tests, for example, test vials, are placed by the physician after the tests are conducted. One of the compartments is for transmitting the requisition charge from the physician to the laboratory. It will be appreciated that the requisition charge contains vital information concerning the nature of the test, the test date, patient's name, etc. When the container with the requisition is received at the laboratory, the samples, of course, are analyzed and the results forwarded to the physician.
Many problems have arisen using such system. For example, because of the handling of the container, the compartments frequently break down and, if there is leakage from one or more of the vials, the test samples would, of course, become contaminated. Moreover, the test samples may leak into the compartment containing the requisition charge and possibly render the charge unreadable or only readable in part. Additionally, it quite frequently occurs that the physician fails to enclose the requisition charge with the necessary information pertaining to the identity of the patient and the nature of the tests. If that information is omitted, the laboratory cannot correlate the test with a particular patient. This necessitates retesting of that patient. Consequently, there has developed a need for a business form set for containing a sample, for example, a test vial, and wherein information sheets useful to each of the various individuals or organizations involved in handling the sample may be removed from the form set while accurately retaining the necessary and vital information pertaining to the sample as part of the envelope containing the sample.